Resident Evil Zero
Summary The industrial town of Raccoon City is located in America's Midwest. Beautiful forests and lake spread across the Northern Arklay Mountain range. But, as if to assault the tranquil scenery, frequent news of bizarre murder cases with people being eaten were reported in the surrounding areas. Raccoon City's elite Special Forces unit "S.T.A.R.T.S" sent their Bravo Team to the scene. However, due to a mysterious engine failure, the Bravo Team's helicopter crash-landed in the forest near the crime scene. Team survived but lost all of their equipment. They stumbled onto a heavily damaged prison convoy and the brutally dismembered corpses of the Marines in charge. Enrico Marini, the Bravo Team commander, ordered that a search be made for Billy Coen, a former Marine who escaped from the convoy. No one could have imagined the horrible disaster that would engulf all of Raccoon City... Story All stories have a beginning. This American disaster began with a single experiment on a common but highly disliked life form, the leech. By adding leech DNA to an original virus, one researcher created a new strain called the T-Virus. The leeches formed a symbiotic relationship with the virus, creating a parasite with incredible vitality. The mutated leeches multiplied over many years since that experiment, and now a swarm of these frightening, mutated leeches have begun to writhe in the deep forest again. (Taken from the diary of Rebecca Chambers, July 23, 1998.) On July 23, 1998, an Umbrella owned train the Ecliptic Express is attacked by a swarm of leeches while a mysterious young man watches it over a hillside. Two hours later, Bravo Team of the Special Tactics And Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) police force is sent to investigate a series of cannibalistic murders in the Arklay Mountains outside of Raccoon City. On the way to the scene, its helicopter has an engine failure and crash-lands in a forest. Bravo Team discovers an overturned military police transporter and the mutilated corpses of two officers. After the team splits up to capture the murderer, field medic Rebecca Chambers finds the same train from earlier now infested with Zombies and explores it. She teams up with former Marine Billy Coen, the convict who was escorted by the military police after he had been sentenced to death for killing 23 people. The two are confronted by the same strangely clad young man from the opening of the game, who sets the train into motion and attacks them with swarms of leeches under his control. Meanwhile a group of Umbrella soldiers are on the train with them and are taking it to unknown location while they are being contacted by two supervisors, Albert Wesker and William Birkin. The soldiers are then killed by leeches. As the train speeds out of control, Rebecca and Billy apply the brakes and avert its course towards an abandoned building. The location is revealed to be a disused training facility for future executives of the pharmaceutical company Umbrella. Rebecca and Billy find out that the corporation's co-founder and former director of the facility, Dr. James Marcus, had discovered the so-called Progenitor virus in the 1960s and examined its potential as a biological weapon. He combined it with leech DNA to develop the T-virus that causes rapid mutations in living organisms and thus transforms humans and animals into zombies and monsters. After Billy repeatedly saves Rebecca's life, he sheds some light on his past as a soldier: One year prior, he and his unit had been dispatched to Africa to raid a guerrilla hideout. When they arrived at their destination deep in the jungle, they found that it was an ordinary village. The unit's captain was afraid of returning empty-handed and ordered the execution of the innocent villagers, ignoring Billy's objections. Back in the United States, Billy was unjustly blamed for the incident and sentenced to death. Meanwhile, Wesker and Birkin are arguing with each other that Umbrella is finished. Wesker decides to leave Umbrella and join its rival company. Birkin refuses to join him in order to complete his research on the G virus. Wesker will lead the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team into the mansion and get the research data of the Tyrant while Birkin will activate the self-destruct system. Rebecca and Billy find an office underneath the facility and find an old photograph of the leech controlling man and they assume that he might be the son or grandson of Marcus. They find a gondola system, Billy is attacked by an infected primate and the two get separated. Rebecca rides the gondola to a water treatment plant, and encounters Captain Enrico who tells her that the rest of the team will meet up at an old mansion and lets her find Billy. She finds Billy, but they also find twenty corpses of Umbrella employees that Marcus used as test subjects for the T virus. Rebecca and Billy eventually catch up with the leech-controlling man who is actually Marcus and the person responsible for the viral outbreak. Ten years ago, he had been assassinated by Wesker and Birkin under the orders of Umbrella co-founder Ozwell E. Spencer who stole his research to become the company's sole president. During his dying moments, Marcus' queen leech entered his body and revitalized it over the course of a decade, thus giving him a chance to take his revenge on Umbrella. Marcus mutates into a gigantic leech monster while the facility's self-destruct mechanism is activated. Just before the explosion, Rebecca and Billy defeat the creature by exposing it to sunlight. They escape to the forest where they see an old mansion used by Umbrella as a research facility. Rebecca assures Billy that her police report will list him as just another casualty of the incident. Billy thanks her and escapes as Rebecca heads towards the mansion to investigate the whereabouts of her fellow Bravo Team members, beginning the events of Resident Evil.